After reading that article this morning, I'm going to try another experiment. For those of you who haven't had the time (or don't want to take the time) to read it, it's a run-down of diet programs that depend on manipulating flavors and aromas to control appetite. It discusses the Shangri-La Diet, the new Sensa program, the previous diet by the same guy who invented (and sells) Sensa, Scentsational Weight Loss, and another one called The Flavor Point Diet.

I just saw That Nice Boy I Married off on a road trip; he'll be gone till Sunday evening. I packed him plenty of food, so he wouldn't have to spend time and money at fast food joints. What did I send? Keep in mind that TNBIM has never been fat, and can tolerate a little more carb than I can:

* Sandwiches on low carb bread -- two ham and cheese, two turkey and cheese, and two PB&J (natural peanut butter and low sugar jelly).

Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish readers! It's time for the carb latke recipe again. Sorry I'm so late with it! Is it my imagination, or does Hanukkah shift around, like Easter? I would have sworn it was usually a little later than this.

I'm thinking I'll try an all-turnip latke. My turnip hash browns were so good, I have high hopes that turnip latkes would be a winner, too.

My experiment with the Shangri-La Diet has been interesting. At first, it worked exactly as Seth Roberts said -- I was simply less hungry. Facebook fans will recall that a couple of times I put back a chunk of my customary after-breakfast chocolate, because I just couldn't finish it. And I was having a really easy time keeping the cookbook weight off. Even went back to having a glass of wine most days.

Leftover pie gone? Good. Let's get on to how to defend ourselves, our health, and our waistlines from now until January 2nd. I'd like to recognize here that there are other wonderful holidays in December -- Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Festivus -- and I'll happily weigh in on any questions you have regarding the food traditions of those holidays. But here in the United States, at least, the cultural juggernaut is Christmas.

I gently gave Andrew a hard time for not telling me about his CyberMonday deals in advance, so he told me he'd extend them through Tuesday. Yay! Once again, just put in the coupon code "cyber," and you'll get the freebies and everything.

I just found out CarbSmart is running CyberMonday deals. If you order by midnight and spend at least $50, you'll get a free bag of sugar free chocolate chips (complete with cookie recipe by yours truly) and a free sugar-free marshmallow or coconut Santa! Just use the coupon code "cyber" during checkout.

Enough holiday-weekending! Time to blog. Here are some notes on our low-carb Thanksgiving dinner:

* The Steviva company had kindly sent me samples of their sweeteners to try, so I used their Steviva Blend, a combination of erythritol and stevia, to sweeten my cranberry sauce. The results were quite good; I would be happy to do the same again. Keep in mind that Steviva is twice as sweet as table sugar or granular Splenda; I used 1/2 cup to 12 ounces of fresh cranberries, 1 cup of water, and a teaspoon of plain gelatin. Good stuff.

This information is for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to be personal medical advice. Please ask your physician about any health guidelines seen in this blog, as everyone is different in his or her medical needs.